


Whale's Song

by aguamenting, Luminee



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Eating Disorders, Enemies to Lovers, Fantastic, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, M/M, References to Depression, Reincarnation, Self-Harm, Smut, Social Anxiety, Soulmates, We Just Love Each Other, Whales, Woosan, a tiny bit though, don't kill the whales, don't worry there is nothing to fear really, kind of, learning how to love, only at the end, they're just broken idiots in love, through love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22902865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguamenting/pseuds/aguamenting, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luminee/pseuds/Luminee
Summary: Wooyoung never understood San, especially when he came around him pretending he wanted him to be happy. He never understood why he fell in love with him, and why San fell in love with him. Maybe somewhere, further than the ocean, behind the horizon, hidden by the city's buildings, there is an anwser. Even though, to San, Wooyoung doesn't need a reason to deserve to be loved.*A young fisherman is about to drown after his ship is destroyed by an hurricane, but he's saved by a whale who carries him on her back.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	1. Rainbows need rain

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys !! I actually wrote this work for two cpop idols but I found out that the story suited WooSan so well that I decided to post another version of it. We need to feed Ateez fandom :'( 
> 
> I'm french and I'm not very good in English so a big thanks to my bro Luminee who translated all of this !! you can support her on twitter @woobrioche and myself @jonghtoast 
> 
> Though there seems to be a lot of trigger warnings, the story itself isn't very explicit and shouldn't really trigger anyone, except for the eating disorder Wooyoung has. Please be careful if that's a trigger for you, and don't forget that you're beautiful anyway and deserves to be loved ! 
> 
> I hope this story will please you, don't hesitate to tell me in a comment, I'd be so happy to read you !!! lots of love

*

“Don’t even wish… for me… to do you the same thing after...”

San smiled, a mix between mockery and amusement, and pushed back on the side Wooyoung’s body, who had turned over to say this, faking a sulky mood but still unable to hide the obvious waves of pleasure which were heating his cheeks. He smiled even more while kissing and sucking the low back of his lover, knowing that what was making Wooyoung so grumpy was shyness and feat that San would ever feel obligated to do anything, even when they were making love. He was probably afraid that San would find him dirty, lousy, probably afraid that he was forcing himself, hoping that he would get something from him, and he was trying to make it more annoying, just like it would discourage him. Braggart mask that San was not believing in for a long time, he had probably never believed in it, knowing that he was able to do anything to Wooyoung’s body as long as the latter would blush and moan, just like he was that night between his arms.

His bust laid on the left side, and his pelvis turned halfway to the top, Wooyoung had to bite his pillow to resist San’s attention, that he knew had this charming and _absolutely odious_ smirk on his face, his fist tighten knowing his nails would probably mark his palms. He had asked him to not move. And just by the thought of it Wooyoung was shaking, hating the defenceless and abandoned feelings that come with it. He did not like for someone to touch his body that he had hated for so long. He was afraid that San might see there not really erotics marks, thickness at the wrong places or anything that could be not perfect. And yet, he let him do, obeying without moving, knowing deeply that San found everything on him at his taste. Everything, from his hair, that would curled during rainy days, until the more and more thin skin at the bottom of his back. Wooyoung opened his eyes wider, muffled a high-pitched scream on his pillow, but was still unable _to want to move._ Whatever San was doing to him, he was unable to escape, his legendary dignity and pride suddenly helpless, because he knew, he could feel all San’s sincerity. Like a _need_ to honour him, to pay tribute to him, because he knew San loved him. That he had the need to devote himself entirely to him, even if it means to slide his head under his legs, one arm lifting Wooyoung’s thigh to reach his penis at the same time, enough to make him lose his mind so Wooyoung would _finally_ forget the decency and questions.

* * *

San had no idea what had made him crazy in love with the young man. He had just caught him, one day, singing in an empty classroom, while he was wandering in the corridors of the conservatory, looking for his night course. He had turned around, lightly laughing, embarrassed of being caught and had helped him to find his way. And San had been helpless, his voice did not came out to thank the young man, he had grabbed his wrist to hold him while he was catching back his breathe so he could ask him, huskily, what was his name and if he could wait for the end of his class to help him leave the place, and also if he could offer him a coffee. Wooyoung had blushed. He had stared at him with his big black coffee like eyes, but did not turn back, like he had already knew San and had expected this reaction, still being flattered by it. He had accepted. With the time, they had created a routine, slowly expanded through little rehearsals together before their classes, and eventually through a date during the Music Day, and San had taken Wooyoung’s lips, unable to let them go ever again.

Wooyoung, with his trailing voice only used when he was feeling uncomfortable and trying to hide it with a built disdain on his face, had often told him he was _weird_. That his passion made no sense, that San was too handsome, too talented, too full of charms and charisma, too popular to want this badly to stuck around the chubby singer, who had just ended his diet trying to destroy his old hang-up from his high school years and the bullying that came along. San’s big almond like eyes, his smooth and thick hair, his thin legs that could be compared to a model’s, his jawline that seemed to be able to cut the finger of the one who would stroke it, and his almost all the time crooked smile that gave him a perfect boyfriend straight out of a Japanese _anime_ vibe. Smiley, charming and confident – the truth was that he was none of all this. He actually was quite the opposite. Wooyoung, still confused by the evident contrast between San and he, knew an anxious boy, who hated crowded spaces, short-tempered and jealous, clumsy. He knew his terrible sense of humour and lame abilities at cooking. He knew his sick need of learn everything about anything, caused by his lack total of self confidence. He knew his total adoration for the young man, that no one had ever noticed before him – and all this sounded like a romantic American film aimed to single and puffy teenagers.

Wooyoung knew San full of insecurities and he had always been surprised to see him even more affected than him by those. He had always seen himself as anxious and naturally stressed, but the first time he had seen San trapped into an anxiety crisis, crying until ripping his hair and hitting the walls down to hurt his fingers, Wooyoung had felt, for the first time, the weird need to be strong. This instinctive desire to be there for someone. He had crouched next to him, took in his warm hands his scraped fists and had kissed the head of a frozen San, barely able to breathe. Walking with difficulty through the storm until he got into the eye of it, Wooyoung had defied his fear – San could have never hurt him, he was sure of that – and had whispered that he was here. That he was not going to abandon him. That everything would be fine. That it was just temporary shadows and nightmares surrounding his mind, and that now, they were two to fight them. He could remember San’s dark eyes, like an abyss, his eyeballs injected with blood, staring at him, lost, like near madness. He could remember San, grabbing him suddenly, cutting his breathe short, not even trying to hide his tears, uttering painfully that he had thought he had left forever and that he could never be forgiven if he had abandoned him now.

Wooyoung never knew what San needed to be forgiven for. After allowing to let himself go against his naked and burning chest, he did not fall asleep immediately, asking once again silently to the moon and stars that he could glimpsed through the window what was torturing that much San, because his heart has been broken ever since, not knowing what was his distress and how to calm it.

* * *

_The young fisherman had never seen that before. The waves were two times the size of the mast, the noises they made every time they were crashing against the hull sounded like the last noises before the door of hell. He was sure he was going to die and he did not like this statement very much. His mother would probably sob for weeks before spending her entire life saying that her son was a useless idiot, and had been so until the very end. Leave to hunt whales, he had said, that young moron. Those chimeras that probably did not even exist, and it would have been better if he had staid and sold shells to help his old mother that had given him everything. Instead of looking for dragons and unicorns, risking the Kraken and Poseidon’s anger. Holding to the balustrade, the young man could hear the nasal voice of his aunt and the one, piercing, of his mother and their various postmortem reproaches, probably not really different from those he was given when he was a minor, obliged to take the tea with them._

_Now that he was facing his destiny, even his horrible aunt Joselyn did not seemed like his worst enemy ever. Henceforth, dragged into a terrible maelstrom, looking like some kind of divine punishment, his boat turning faster and faster, cracking without mercy, the mast falling on the sailors that had not been able to hide fast enough, and the young fisherman turning away so he would_ _not see how his comrades were crushed. He was the only one not crying, too annoyed to realize that his life was going to stop before it has even started. Here he was, waiting, more wisely than an elder, for death, without fighting or asking for help, without confessing nor praying._

* * *

Wooyoung had never seen the ocean. San had been surprised the first time he had come to his house, discovering an encyclopedia, books telling stories about dolphins, or forsaken cetaceans. Jules Verne’s books like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Moby Dick or The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. He had a DVD of Besson’s The Big Blue and Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s documentaries, without mentioning Finding Nemo. When San had crouch to examine his collection, Wooyoung had shyly made this confession, coming back from the kitchen on his tiptoes, two warm cups of tea in his hands.

“ _Is this why it fascinates you that much? Because you have never seen it?”_

“ _I guess? I’ve never been out of the city. To be honest, I have never seen snow either.”_

“ _I see...”_

“ _Well, lucky you, because I don’t see anything at all”_ had laughed Wooyoung.

And San had felt his heart tighten without  really  understanding why. He could feel that there was something there to dig but had never dared to ask why Wooyoung, captivated by the sea, had never organized a day, a week, a moment, to take the train and make his dream come true. Maybe he was scared, just like San was, to be hit by reality. That it might be disappointing and  dull.

San had never been  the calm kind. Little, he had struggled with nightmares, had a n irrational fear of storm,  of rain at night, and could only cry himself to sleep. Growing up, he had still been afraid of dark, but sleeping with the city lights filtering through the window gave him night terrors in which dark silhouettes stood out of the gold outside. Letting the young man frozen on his bed, his eyes bulging and a silent scream, bursting out when he was finally able to wake up. The crowd terrified him and he was easily overwhelmed by stress at the tiniest pressure. As a teen, he had had to use a traditional tranquilliser, hard to keep as a secret and, Wooyoung had gotten tears in his eyes while discovering the scars on his arms. Still resistant, no matter how long it had been since.

San, who never handle abandonment, had paradoxically never been very surrounded. He had suffered a lot through every departure of his friends at every step of his life, middle school, high school, college. He isolated himself for days when a fight was coming for him and the first crisis that had scared Wooyoung was a day during which he had called to cancel the afternoon they were supposed to spend together, telling him he would still come to see him during the evening. San’s voice had became less and less perceptible and his not-yet-boyfriend had first thought it was due to lack of sleep. Until he had discovered him a few hours later, sitting against the wall of his kitchen, staring at a broken piece of tile, marks of salt on his cheeks. 

“ _San? What happened?”_

“ _...”_

“ _San, damn, are you okay? Do you want me to call 911? Are you fainting? Look at me!”_

“ _Sorry… I thought… you were not coming back...”_

Wooyoung had kept silent and then had sighed. 

“ _It’s the first time I meet such an idiot… You’re even worse than me.”_

And he had brought his head against his heart, smiling sadly, before starting to sing the song he had been learning at that time. San had apologized for hours, and then begged him to stay over that night. 

“ _I’m afraid without you.”_

Wooyoung had accepted. Stroking the deep of San’s dimple, putting his cheek even more comfortably in the corner of his collar bone. Just like a puppy, the latter agreed to the stroking, relaxing little by little, and his breathing becoming smoother.

Wooyoung had not been scared in front of San’s obvious sick possessiveness, he had never raised his voice on him or tried to ran away and stopped their relationship. No matter how hard San had been crying on the phone when Wooyoung was visiting a friend he did not know about, hitting the walls until he would broke the plaster, waking up in the middle of the night screaming. Never Wooyoung had given up on him. At the end, San had became softer to his contact, like tamed. He had learn to trust, to fall in love in a healthier way than he had never been able to. He had learn to rely on him as much as Wooyoung ended up relying on San. He had had the feeling to go out of a tempest, a storm that had lasted for years, a hurricane of uncontrollable emotions that had been crushing into ashes San’s mental health. He had had the impression to distinguish a shy rainbow in a still rainy sky and, to spin the metaphor, to glimpse new colours.

* * *

_ The young fisherman opened with difficulty his eyes, grinning as he felt the sprays of salty water on his face and entered his nose. He choked almost, cough violently, shaking his body that was feeling entirely painful, before understanding he was still on the water – but that he was probably not dead. If he was, then, paradise had been over sell, because it seemed like nothing that he was feeling at that moment was pleasant. For that matter, he had not expected to feel anything once dead, to go on that topic. _

_Without having the time to stay cynical, the young man opened his eyes wider suddenly, not caring about the horrible tingly sensation under his eyelid due to salt who had irritated those. He was floating on something. Something that did not look like a board or a barrel. He was floating on something moving on its own and not under the ocean’s will, something that was so huge that he he had the impression to be on a little beach, a moving reef, something like that. While he tried to get up, half terrified, like it was trying to end to impress him, a huge squirt of water was projected to the sky, a few miles from him. A squirt that was as tall as a man, so way higher than himself._

_ The young man swallowed the bile and saliva left on him. He was certainly on the back of a whale, reduced to the drift of her own will. _

* * *

Wooyoung did not had a happy childhood. Not like he did not have any friends, or that he had been suffering of any kind of disability, however middle school had been a very complicated period, leaving a bitter mark that has yet to disappear. He had left school full of hangs-up, about his weight, his preferences for sweets, his love for reading, his passion for classical music, his smile that shows up his gums when he was laughing too much, his tininess, his lack of endurance while working out. He had arrived in high school afraid, a brand new shyness taking him under control every time someone would talk to him, his smile frozen into a sulky pout, scared that he would be laughed at again. He had withdraw into his music course, and all kind of classes that would allow him to study those composers he had always been fascinated by. Among them all, Wooyoung loved Jean-Sebastian Bach’s regularity and his rigour, who had brought back to life lost astronauts in _2001, A Space Odyssey,_ by Kubrick _._ Sometimes, like them et like Indochine, he felt like a “cat on Mars who would never come back on Earth”. He still was not talking to anyone. 

Thus, when he had been into a flirt like  Choi San, he could not believe it. All this seemed to him like a huge joke, like the ones when he was alone in middle school and girls would make fun of him, pretending they were in love with so they could reject him better. The boy would cover him with thoughtfulness, all of them more unlikely than the other. He was always making sure to walk him over when it was obvious Wooyoung was too scared to take the subway at night after their courses, always asked for extra cream while ordering a coffee and giving him his own  _sp_ _e_ _culoos_ when Wooyoung finally dared to eat his in front of him. San was weird, completely crazy, had thought Wooyoung. Crazy for wanting to be stuck with him when there was a thousand more interesting people out there. It was not like San could have any troubles in the world, he had thought, with a pretty prince charming like face like his. 

Since it was obviously a bad joke, Wooyoung had taken nothing seriously.  He had been on the defensive during many days, a provocative look on his face, judging San all the time, trying to make himself unbearable so that he would give up quickly, not being able to believe a person...  _like him_ could have wanted to be close to him. He had made fun of him. His jokes, his puns, his habits, his clumsiness. He had growled at him that he should stopped staring at him, that he was looking like a fish out of the water – the truth not really far from his cutting remarks as San really was breathless sometimes, which never failed to make Wooyoung uncomfortable. 

However, San had kept on stick on, answering to his defiance look with a unbreakable obstinacy, so that he would believe him.

“ _Don’t you have friends to see? Real ones?”_

“ _That’s what I’m doing here.”_

“ _Leave me alone, San, I don’t wanna eat in front of you.”_

“ _You don’t like eating in front of people?”_

“… _No.”_

“ _So I can finish your plate?”_

“ _San! Get out of my table!”_

“ _I won’t look at you. Promise.”_

Ignoring the anxiety rising at the bottom of his stomach, filling him so much he almost lost his appetite, Wooyoung had started to eat, swallowing his tears. He had eaten slowly, with difficulty, standing up with pride against this intruder with all his strength. He had been strong for long minutes, stuck up in a church worthy silence while San was keeping himself busy with a book taken in the library, without any other pressure than his suffocating presence. Wooyoung wanted to shock. He had the feeling that, like every time he was eating with someone, his throat was tightening each time he tried to swallow, fighting against the nausea becoming more and more powerful. Nevertheless, he had eaten everything. His fist tight and tears in his eyes. And when he had put down his forks, San had raised his eyes to him, took a tissue and wiped of the tears, without any word. 

He had always let him all the time he needed. A few weeks later, Wooyoung had learnt San had missed a few beginnings of his courses to stay with him until the end of his meals, stuck on a little bench of the university. Without ever telling him, just to make sure he was eating correctly and was not running to the restrooms right after. Without ever telling him, San had always been worried for him, stubborn, so that Wooyoung would learn again how to eat easily, alone or not, at the right hours.

One night, after the end of the last show of their first Music Day, they had sat on a bench, near the subway, a sandwich on San’s hands and a tiny punnet of fries on Wooyoung’s thighs. A huge bottle of water at their feet, each of them with an earphone, they were eating calmly, sharing sometimes a smile or a  collusive glance. A few minutes later, they had met San’s acquitances, three girls and two boys. Wooyoung had lower his head, putting his leftover next to him. He knew these girls. 

“ _San? What are you doing next?”_

“ _We’re going home, we’ll take one of the last trains.”_

“ _Sure? We’re looking for a nightclub, come with us!”_

“ _No, thanks, we’ll go home.”_

_San was politely smiling, standing up in front of the group. Wooyoung could feel himself starting to froze like a rock statue as the girls starting to stare at him more and more obviously._

“ _Hey, we know each other, don’t we?”_

_Yes. But Wooyoung did not answer._

“ _It’s Wooyoung.”_

_San’s voice had no feeling._

“ _Ah! I remember! We were in the same school right? You could say hello,” had laughed one of the girl. Wrongly. In the corner of his eye, Wooyoung saw her adjust one of her hair lock. She was acting pretty, staring at San. He gritted his teeth, but no sound came out of his open mouth. His throat too tight. The taste of fries at the bottom of his throat turning into acid._

“ _Let it go, he’s probably not used to a pretty girl talking to him.”_

_This had been said jokingly. Probably nothing. The boy had not thought, probably jealous of the chuckles surrounding San now. Greedy to look funny and interesting in the eyes of the girls that he could feel were choosing a distant and attractive classmate. Wooyoung strove himself to not take him seriously and not react while San’s voice rose once again. Hard and cold, like marble, like San had never talked in front of Wooyoung. Never._

“ _I told you we were going home, why the fuck does it matter to you that he says hi if he’s leaving?”_

“ _Sorry? Who the hell are you? His boyfriend?” _

_ In shock, Wooyoung r ose his  head. Swallowing a dumbfounded hiccup realizing how scary San had become. A dark look on his face, his shoulders in front like he was ready to charge, his jawline tight, his hands shaking and his bare skin exposed to the fresh air of the night, travelled by a venous pattern.  _

“ _You wish, you would be sure to fuck tonight.”_

_In a usual time, Wooyoung would have make fun of San’s obvious narcissism. But tonight, controlled by an unspeakable instinct, guided by his senses, he hardly raised his hand, breaking out of his immobility, to put his palm on the San’s naked arm. The girls were not moving, under the shock or out of fear, but Wooyoung’s eye sight had suddenly become blurry for everything that was not San._

“ _Let it go,” he whispered under his breath._

Even after one year and nine months, he still got the chills, that he could not tell if it was pleasant or unpleasant. He remembered the other boy telling him to leave (on more crude words), even if he could not remember the precise words, he remembered San grabbing him by the collar to yell something very violent. Wooyoung had yelled to, strengthen his grip on the latter’s arm, had asked him to calm down. Another girl had intervened, had excused her comrade using alcohol, had said good evening to San – only to San – and the third one had shyly suggested that they should part for the night. San had sat down, and when Wooyoung had found back enough balance in this weird situation to let his arm slid against his, their hands had tied. He remembered San had squeezed his so strongly that it had hurt, but he had not protested. 

San was losing every type  of  restraint when it comes to Wooyoung.  And yet, their first time have not been passionate and explosive. Wooyoung had let go of himself for a few moments before bursting out of tears against San’s shoulder,  babbling excuses hardly audible. They had laid back down, the little one on the arms of the tall one, sniffing and sobbing, taking a monstrous time to calm down. But the other one knew. He knew Wooyoung had never let anyone touch him before him. He knew he hated already enough his face on the mirror, so the rest of his body was not even conceivable. He knew all the sweep and sincerity of Wooyoung’s feelings for him, without it giving him any confidence, too focused on his self hate to consider that someone could accept and loving entirely. He knew all that and had no cure for it,  soothing him while losing all kind of time references, whispering on his ear that he was beautiful, that everything was normal, that they had all the time in front of  them and that he would wait for him as long as necessary. He had understood that if Wooyoung was not strong enough to share his body with him, he trusted him enough to share his struggles and tears, until he would let himself cry in his arms, he had given him the right to comfort him. 

San had always waited and Wooyoung had always came back. It had been like that for many long months that had shaped their deep and atypical relationship. Learning slowly one like the other to walk with a crutch, then to fly away alone to get back together, to hold on, and never let the other go.

*


	2. Sea Saw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys !! I hope you'll enjoy this second and last part of the work. It was still translated from the french version by Luminee @woobrioche on twitter !! A big thanks to her uwu

*

_The young fisherman was really not worthy of his name. His skin attacked by the salt, washed-up on the beach like a dead cetacean, and the sun burning his cheeks. He was barely human. Crazed by the tiredness, the hunger and the heat, he dragged himself on a shady corner on the pebble beach, scratching his head on the shells, and closed his eyes._

_A few hours later, a fresh air that made his crusts relived and the young man and groaned of pain, waking up again. He managed to hobble his way on the sand, bursting the shell of tinier shells and ended up chewing berries that were left with mistrust. As night was falling, he found a tree trunk with a cutting stone to drink greedily its sap, unable to open a coconut, too weak and not enough desperate._

_ The night was hard. He was tired without wanting to sleep, every muscles he had was stiff and his skin was irritated at many decisive places. As it was not enough, he did not knew half of the bugs on the island – if we could call this section of sand poorly surfacing an island. However, he would have like to feel something more precise, like despair, the need to scream to the moon on the sand, or anything else. Everything but this inert fatalism that made him feel like he was dead inside._

_As his look was getting lost on the horizon, in the sad assessment that he was probably going to die slowly here, the young man saw a huge squirt of water pierce through the evening sea’s oil. At that moment, he smiled, hardly because his lips were bleeding, but he smiled. The whale was waiting for him. He knew he would get back on her back, as soon as he would be able to swim. He guessed without thinking what was preventing him from fearing death and a morbid end. She had brought him here, and she will guide him somewhere else. The young man did not know what was making him so sure of the whale’s decision, but he was deeply believing now; she was his ally._

_He fall asleep during the late night, analysing with curiosity the stars with the sound of the whale’s song. The surprising melody made him think about the musical performances his mother was bringing him to – was forcing him to go. A kind of methodic regularity but still very creative, a wealth that he was unable to understand all the subtleties. A bit like Jean-Sebastian Bach._

* * *

“San don’t be annoying and let it go, for once.”

It was the night of their two years. San had been surprised that Wooyoung had remembered, but, after all, they were counting from three days after Music Day, making the calculus easier. Two years that they were together, in a _relationship_ , and if San would have given blood and organs for Wooyoung, he still had did not know how to celebrate a date, no matter what was her signification. He had tried many things, a film night for a birthday, a messed up Christmas dinner, a leather bracelet for their first year, a steel ring for the Wooyoung’s second anniversary and a picnic under the stars for their second Christmas.

On the paper everything seemed very movie like, and San knew that, in the theory, everything had pleased Wooyoung to the point of blushing and laughing. However, every celebration was terrifying him many weeks before, at the moment he was under the pressure so unsure that he would stay quiet for long minutes, his hands shaking like a little boy’s who has to speak up in front of the entire classroom. At every special day they were sharing, Wooyoung was giving him his most adorable smile and was forced to reassure him, to tell him that everything was perfect and that what was not perfect was making the day even more perfect – and San could feel his eyes getting wet not knowing if he was grateful or humiliated.

He hated knowing that he was a burden for Wooyoung, and this sensation was even stronger when he was striving himself to prepare something and that at the end, it was the little one that would take the matter into his own hands.

But that night, the night of their two years, San was too taken aback to feel anything as Wooyoung was  _literally_ taking the matter into his own hands; and this was giving him a whole new sensation. 

They were lying one against the other, Wooyoung as the bigger spoon against San’s back,  slipping his hand above his hip and his other arm near his torso. An annoyed tongue popping followed Wooyoung’s order, before his lips would allow themselves to suck the skin on the shoulder within reach. San had his eyes almost wide open, staring at the window without seeing it, his mouth half opened on a protest that never came, killed in the bud by his boyfriend’s authority. A whisper got to him, between two kisses: 

“Just let me feel what you feel, please.” 

Goodbye pride, goodbye provocation. Wooyoung was now a lover and in love, gentle in his stroke, no matter how intimate they were, making San wanting to scream. Closing his eyes, by reserve, he tried not to focus on the vulnerability he was despising, this vulnerability that he was still offering to Wooyoung, split  between tenderness and the pleasure of this new exchange, and the guilt and fear to be so suddenly expose, defenceless, not being able to squeeze Wooyoung in his arms.

The other one sighed.

“San, you’re not my sexual prisoner, okay? Relax, please.”

The latter could not help but have a plaintive whine, that he had never thought he would be able to have. Wooyoung’s hand was soft, his palm warm and his fingers slowly going between his thighs. Her twin let finally go of San’s wrists, dragging it out of his body that was crushing it until then, to run in arabesques on his back, giving him a few chills against his will. He felt Wooyoung’s forehead on the back of his head, the tip of his nose blowing on his dark locks, and his mouth kissing the base of his neck.

“Trust me. I love you.”

San whined, his throat tighten but his heart willing.

* * *

_The young man had waited two days and two nights before daring to jump into the water. He had swam hardly to the whale, on thirty miles, maybe even more than fifty, he had lost the count. He had heard her sing, she had not stopped, not until he had reached her. Once again washed-up on her back, like he had been on the beach, they had drifted away for many more miles, during a day, a night and a dawn. The young man had not a fucking idea of why he had trusted so much that animal that was not even talking the same language as him._

_The dawn let his spot to a sunny noon, hot like hell, and the young man really wanted to let himself die. Likely, it was his destiny, the cetacean even if he was taking him under his shelter, had not understand that he was not made to live on the salty water by his side…_

_The young man heard a horn’s noise ripped the atmosphere. Too out of breathe to jumped out, he just rolled over on his back, discerning wood noises, clicking of steel and voices that sounded like what used to be his._

_Human voices._

_ The whale had led him to another fishing boat. _

* * *

Wooyoung had never seen the ocean. 

And San could not  report this fact, trying his best to offer him something, maybe too afraid to confront the tsunami that seemed to be waiting, just like a sword of Damocles hanging up over their heads. He was feeling that something would go wrongly when Wooyoung would stand in front of the sea for the first, the sea that he was so fascinated by and still, had always stand so far away from it. He was not sure if he was strong enough for Wooyoung to lean on him at that moment, and, obviously, this idea was the most terrifying one for San. The one to not be worthy for Wooyoung, the one to weaken without being able to ask for help, the one to make a decisive mistake. Sea had scared mankind as much as they had been fascinated by since the dawn of humanity. This huge  area of salty water that was giving its colour to their planet and setting the horizon, the one that the depths had probably only for equal the immensity of the sky above their heads. Only mankind’s imagination could fill the abysses, that no one could reach the bottom of it – and this could have been even more frightening than imagining that the universe had no end. San, far from deciding which one was less reassuring: the vacuum of space or the Lovecraft’s apocalyptic monsters, was only focused on the centre of his own universe and the fear that the latter would turn into a black hole, absorbing all kind of light and energy if he ever made a wrong step.

“You don’t wanna tell me where we’re going? Seeing your face, we’re ready to get lost,” sighed Wooyoung suddenly, snuggling against his boyfriend after putting their baggages on the compartment above their heads, looking at him half worried, half mischievous.

“No,” answered San, immediately looking for his hand to take in his, tried his best to have a reassuring and loving smile.

Wooyoung let out a grunt of frustration, balanced by a smile he could not hold, reflecting San’s. He did not protest and let his head rest on San’s shoulder  in an affective manner, posing their hands now linked on his knees, possessively. 

“Too bad for you. You will have to ask your GPS when you’ll be lost.”

San laughed behind his anxiety.

“Trust me.”

“Not even in your dreams.”

San giggled.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” whispered Wooyoung, his words revealing his smile every time he said it.

“… _I love you.”_

“ _You what?”_

_Wooyoung was staring at San like he had grown a second head. It had not been enough for him to scare him to death, leaving him at his place after telling him goodbye, to come back and knock at his door – at past two am, can you believe – now San was turning suddenly into a chimerical monster, dramatic illusion that Wooyoung could not believe._

_Musi c Day was over for a long time now, Wooyoung’s bullies and San’s abuser gone, the night had spread on the roofs and the lights of the shops were turned off. Wooyoung realized suddenly that San had been ready to come back home by feet, since public transportations would not operate before five thirty in the morning. This thought made his unbelief and fear turn into anger. _

“ _If you wanted to sleep at home, you could have just ask, no need to pretend, Choi San!”_

“ _If I wanted what?” choked the latter, his eyes wide opened, leaning imperceptibly forward, like he had taken a blow._

“ _I’m tired of your lies and your tricks to take advantage of me, you think I don’t know that those people are your friends? That you’re just acting because it turns you on to wait for me to surrender so you could walk all over me?”_

_Wooyoung had kept on throwing his venom for many seconds, maybe even one or two minutes, a few eternities for San, frozen in the middle of the paved way that was leading to the entrance of his building, in chock, his legs shaking._

“ _W-Wooyoung?”_

_His voice had came out more high-pitched then what he had wanted, and his shaking was against his will. However the latter did not stop his logorrhea, coming closer to him, his finger raised to insult an old student, San did not know who, who had learn that, not only was he too fat to be pretty, but also Wooyoung had the indecency to be gay, and had lied to him to pretend going out with him after a bet with his friends, and how this boy had stolen his first kiss before slapping him. And as he was pronouncing the word “slap”, Wooyoung had rose his hand, probably without even noticing it, enraged, and San abruptly cringed. If the gesture had made obvious his complete vulnerability, it had made Wooyoung quiet, and the silence came between them like a light breeze before the younger broke it, his voice completely changed:_

“ _San… why are you crying?”_

_Only a sob answered him._

_San kept his big ink like dark eyes fixed on the other one, sparkling with tears, unable to move, his mouth still a bit open like he had tried to interrupt him. Standing still in the middle of the way like idiots, the two boys were staring at each other without understanding what was going on. At this moment, Wooyoung’s hand, before ready to slap the other one without mercy, touched, delicate and fresh, San’s cheek. The latter sniffed at the touch, closing his mouth without talking further._

“ _Are you crying because I scared you?”_

_Wooyoung had to focus to hear the whispered “no”, as if he was answering him from the other side of the parking._

“ _Because you think that I don’t like you?”_

_Wooyoung was unsure but at the same time, San must have known how he was feeling towards him. If he had tried to push him away, it was in the hope to trigger his fall, to make him leave while he was expecting nothing from him, hoping to not hope. If he had made fun of San’s feelings and his way of caring, it was to mock what was yelling in his heart and to consign what he was feeling on the deepest part of his unconscious. For him, San was too handsome to be real, too perfect to be honest, and if he was indeed desperate to meet someone like him, he did not believed in fairytale anymore. So it was obvious that San was lying. Wooyoung’s brain was working trying to find a logical explanation, but to see the tears going out of the involuntarily loved eyes, he could ignore it._

“ _No...”_

_San’s voice was a bit more audible and Wooyoung slowly stroke his cheek with his thumb._

“ _Then why are you crying?”_

_Another breeze went through them._

“ _I’m sorry I wasn’t here when they hurt you...”_

_And San sobbed again, closing his eyes this time, by shame, by fear or by shyness, Wooyoung could not tell, too focused on the wave of heat that was flooding his chest, giving him wings strong enough to make him move forward, his other hand put on San’s chest, toward San’s lips._

_And like a geyser, a volcano, an earthquake, the feelings of the other one burst as San grabbed him in a way too passionate embrace to be fake, taking him into a blunt, almost savage, kiss. Wooyoung was too lost to be able to remember anything else from this night, lost in a vortex of emotions that still offered him the very first feeling of fullness of his life._

“Do you wanna share an earphone?” 

Brutally taken out of his thoughts and memories, Wooyoung jumped, creating a half mocking, half moved, laugh from San’s mouth. A very light punch answered him. 

“Don’t laugh!”

Without surprise, San laughed even more, closing his eyes and digging his dimples. Making the most out of the fact that the almost empty wagon, Wooyoung started to throw at him few little punches, knowing very well that the other one would stop him by kissing him and ruffling his hair. Wooyoung thought that it was a better way to ask for kiss rather than ask, in a boring way.

* * *

“ _A man on the sea!”_

_The screams were closer, and, obviously, clearer. The young man wished he could answer them but his throat was hurting him too much. He felt the shadow of the hull over them, cooling the air, and he almost drawn brutally when he felt suddenly the back of the whale stopping to support him. A net grabbed his body, he went out of the water and his body suddenly felt heavier, even in his half coma. A voice told him he was safe, that he could let go now, that everything would be fine, that he was among his people, but for a reason the young man suddenly felt the need to speak, to open his eyes, to make sure of something._

“ _She.. she saved me...”_

_ Nobody heard him. His eyelid were so heavy that it was like they would never be able to be open fully, and still, he put a huge effort to do it. His scream tear his throat, probably already damaged, as he distinguished the spears, the harpoons and the water turning crimson red. The ropes of the net were pulling off the dead skin of his face as he was pressing it, moved by a crazy energy that could only be the one from despair, while the blood of the whale was  watering the men.  _

“ _SHE SAVED ME!”_

_And his heart was shred, knowing it was too late. She had always known that he could not breathe like her, that his skin would never resist to the salt that was her world, still, she had carried him until the end, following her instinct: it was not their differences that she had understood. It was him who had never understand how similar they were, no matter what was their natural environment._

_The young fisherman died a bit at the same time as the whale was slaughtered._

_His throat torn apart by the screams and sobs never carried another word, another note, another sound when his feet got back on the land and the stones of the port, leaving his voice as she could never sing again in this life._

* * *

Wooyoung had never seen the ocean. But the ocean was not about seeing only. It was about hearing, tasting, and the various textures that the young man could feel if San was not careful enough. Wooyoung had been forced to wear a headband on his eyes, earphones on playing a piano music, his boyfriend had even thought of going as far as blocking his nose, but ended up believing that he might could not recognize the smells of the coast. They were walking hand in hand, San pulling Wooyoung when the road was too abruptly going up, the little one surprisingly calm and confident. Avoiding the beaches were too many people would trouble their intimacy, San had chosen a more isolated place, a one of kind point of a view but still not really visited because too high for the all comers. 

When their walk ended, San moved apart from Wooyoung, looking in his bag for a bottle of water before the other one let out a worried whine, raising his hand in the void to find back San’s. The latter smiled, touched and his heart beating fast, and put his lips on Wooyoung’s before slowly taking off his earphones and his headband. Wooyoung was not comfortable, and let him do as he embraced his lover, like he was trying to be reassured, answering his chaste kiss. Free of his shackles, he struggled to move apart from San who did not let him go, simply turning to face the horizon, his muscled arms tied around Wooyoung’s waist and his chin on his shoulder.

Wooyoung saw the ocean.

He first had his breath cut off, his legs almost letting him go, fortunately hold by San who tighten his hold around his waist. A wheeze came out of his jaw, and he ended up putting his hands on his mouth. San felt the burning tears running on his own cheeks, even if they were not his, he had expected a shock, the fear was quick to torn his stomach.

“Wooyoung?”

Let without an answer, San straighten up to watch him, and the strength of what he saw in the eyes of his lover hit him like a punch. Wooyoung looked like the one who just had a vision, a waking dream, the one that turns crazy, that is possess. His eyes were wide opened, letting a flood of tears on his cheeks, suddenly pale like a cadaver, and his hands were tighten fists, his nails scratching his face.

“Wooyoung, what’s going on?”

Afraid, San made him turn to face him, embracing him like he was about to protect him from he had no idea what kind of danger, probably from everything. He felt Wooyoung letting him do, without giving up his fixation, dived in the sea like a shipwrecked. After what seemed to be an eternity, San felt his tiny hands grabbing his coat on his back and on his shoulders, and a sob louder than ever was heard above the waves. 

“Wooyoung… hey, it’s going to be okay… Wooyoung, I love you.”

He felt the latter hiding his nose on his neck, inhaling as loud as possible, like he was trying to drawn in his perfume and forget the world.

“It was you… It was you over there.”

“What?”

“It was you that I saved.”

If San had the feeling that his body was reacting to his words like it was knowing better than his mind of what was going on, h e stayed there, his arms dangling, to this inexplicable statement. 

“From what did you saved me… Yes, without you I’d have probably killed myself but what is-”

“From the sinking San. I remember now. You were the one I carried on my back to bring you home. It’s you who cried for me when I died.”

San crumbled when he finally remembered. He tried to close his eyes to not see the blood in his memories, he forgot if it was him or Wooyoung who was holding to the other to not fall. His only anchor point to reality was the taste for Wooyoung’s skin, salted by the tears, when he put his face on his neck, exact reflect, like the yin and the yang, of Wooyoung’s position.

“Sorry… thank you for everything...”

“Sorry…”

“Thank you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Above everything.”

* * *

« _Le silence éternel des espaces infinis m'effraie_

_Et la seule chose qu'on puisse lui opposer,_

_C’est la poésie et la musique_. » - Pascal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo im on twitter @jonghtoast if y'all wanna talk ;;
> 
> I hope you liked this, don't hesitate to tell me or to leave kudos if so !! love y'all and thanks a lot for reading ;;

**Author's Note:**

> The second and last part will come soon I promise !!!! It's already written anyway so I'll just wait a few days and then it's posted !! I hope you liked it until now uwu, you can still hit me up on twitter @jonghtoast or my fellow translator pipou @woobrioche 
> 
> see y'all soon and thanks a lot for reading me ;;


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